"But the Roumanians couldn't see it that way, it seems. On they came in a mad rush for safety. The artillery was shelling the road behind them, and we were holding the bridge almost airtight. Soon the bridge was full of dead and wounded. Others came and attempted to get over them. They fell. Still others pressed on, driven ahead by the maddened crowd in the rear.
"The machine-guns continued to work. Very soon this bridge was full of dead and wounded as high as the parapet. And still those fools would not surrender. Nor did they have sense enough to charge us. There were heaps of dead in front of the bridge, as far as the house over there.
"That should have been a lesson to them. But it wasn't. On they came. Some of them trampled over the dead and wounded. Those more considerate tried to walk on the parapet. The machine-guns took care that they did not get very far.
"By that time those shot on top of the heap began to slide into the river. Those not under fire scrambled down to the river and swam it—those who could swim; the others are in it yet. You can see them down there and wherever there is sand-bank or rock-ledge. But those who swam were the only ones that escaped us. That crowd was so panicky that it didn't have sense enough even to surrender. That's my theory.
"It was an awful sight. Do you think this war will end soon?"
In private life the narrator is a school-teacher in a little village in the Bavarian highlands.
VIII
PATRIOTISM AND A CRAVING STOMACH
Napoleon had a poor opinion of the hungry soldier. But it is not only the man-at-arms who travels on his belly—the nation at war does the same.